Posted on 03/05/2022 4:54:34 PM PST by MercyFlush
KALININGRAD, Russia -- Igor Pleshkov owns a concrete factory in this Russian Baltic Sea exclave encircled by European Union members Lithuania and Poland. As tensions burn red hot between Russia and the West over Moscow’s military invasion of Ukraine, he is worried.
“What will come next is hard to say,” he shrugged. “The situation is changing every minute -- for the worse.”
Like Pleshkov’s factory, most businesses in the region of about 1 million people, depend on imports for raw materials, spare parts, and equipment. Residents are nervously watching the unfolding political situation and the alarming collapse of the value of ruble.
“What can we expect?” Pleshkov said. “It will be a catastrophe, complete collapse. Within a week, every housewife will be feeling it.”
“Businesses are already feeling it now,” he added.
Since Moscow’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Western countries have imposed waves of unprecedented sanctions, including shutting some Russian banks out of the SWIFT financial-transactions system. Most European countries have closed their airspace to Russian planes.
Flights from Kaliningrad to Moscow since February 27 have been flying over the Baltic Sea to the Leningrad region before turning sharply south. The new route has added about 40 minutes to the flying time, making it a two-hour journey.
So far, prices have been stable, at about 2,600 rubles ($22) each way.
But without government intervention that may not last, said Solomon Ginzburg, head of Regional Strategy, a local think tank.
“The flight time has increased…because of the northeastern bend,” he said. “That costs money. It is easy to calculate that ticket prices will rise 35 to 40 percent.”
In a video posted to Instagram on March 1, Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov attempted to head off such fears.
“If ticket prices rise, we have already spoken to the federal government, and we will ask for additional support so that tickets won’t become significantly more expensive and will continue to be affordable,” he said.
'I'll Have To Take The Loss'
Passenger rail links between the exclave and the rest of Russia pass through Lithuania under a 2003 agreement with the EU. Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on February 27 that no changes to that agreement were under consideration.
Nonetheless, imports brought into the region by truck are already being affected. In fact, local businesspeople say, the region has been under economic pressure at least since January, when tensions flared between Belarus and neighboring Poland and Lithuania over a migrant crisis along their borders. Hundreds of trucks bound for Kaliningrad got hung up at the border, and the delays never eased up.
“In some places it is better and in others it is worse,” said Leonid Stepanyuk, vice president of the DSB-Transport trucking firm. “One of my trucks got through the border in five days, another in seven, and yet another in 10.”
“The situation is best on the Russian-Latvian border,” he added. “It is worse on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border.”
A trucker who asked to be identified only as Sergei told RFE/RL that he had recently returned from Russia after spending 12 days at the Salcininkai-Benyakoni border crossing between Belarus and Lithuania. He spent the entire time living in his truck.
“Of course, it was hard,” he said. “I was able to buy food and I have a refrigerator in the truck. The Belarusians brought food -- they cook it at home and sell it in portions. You could ask them to bring you water too.”
“Earlier, I’d make the trip to Moscow about three times a month,” he added. “That is normal. This time it took me 20 days to go to [the western Russian city of] Bryansk and back.”
Pyotr, a Kaliningrad entrepreneur who asked to be identified only by his first name, imports furniture from Poland. For him, as the value of the ruble declines, each day is lost money. On February 28, the ruble declined from 19 Polish zloty to 30, costing him 360,000 rubles ($3,300).
“I have more than 40 orders of furniture sitting ready in Poland now,” he told RFE/RL’s North.Realities. “They were supposed to be shipped last week, but now they are saying it left on [March 1]. The Poles refused to load it right way because they were waiting for their president to announce sanctions against Russia…. They are in shock themselves -- just in one city there are 70 factories working almost exclusively for Russia.”
“In the end, on March 1, I lost more money because of the exchange rate,” he said. “The furniture is all prepaid, so I have to sell it for the old price. I can’t retroactively raise the prices. I’ll have to take the loss.”
Given Russia's new threats against the Baltic states today I'd say this is prudent and sensible to prevent the Russians from putting armored forces into the Oblast.
Talk about awkward location.
Supposedly Putin has nukes in Kaliningrad
Putin claimed that Ukraine is not a real country because it was historically Russo-Slavic and so on, but Kaliningrad was never Russo-Slavic
By his own logic, Putin should give it back to Europe
STOP this insanity. Just STOP!
I don’t understand why Russia was allowed to keep Kaliningrad.
Should be Germany.
They can’t give it back to Prussia anymore. I don’t think anyone would consent giving it to Germany because I doubt there are many ethnic Germans there anymore. When borders were drawn after WW2, the Soviets got to keep the eastern part of Poland that they took after the Nazi-Soviet pact when Poland was divided up by Germany and SU. To compensate Poland after WW2 for the territory they lost in the east they got parts of Silesia Prussia that were part of Germany. Populations were forced to shift.
Now the SU also got to take back the Baltic counties that Russia had before WWI. The Russians once had Baltic countries but lost them after WW1. When the SU got the Baltic counties back after WW2, there was a gap because Poland’s borders shifted west. The gap area at the time was continuous with the SU. But when SU fell, the Baltic countries became independent again and the enclave of Kaliningrad was left under Russian control. It was a part of the Russian SSR so it stayed with Russia.
Putin is single handedly destroying Russia. I expect Russians to take of this problem.
Does anyone think that Putin doesn’t know who is supplying Ukraine?
Does anyone think he will just forget that?
We should demand vote by the citizens of Kaliningrad to see if they want to be Konigsberg again and not part of Russia. Spoiler alert: they don’t want to be part of Russia.
From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century Kaliningrad, then known as Królewiec in Polish or Königsberg in German, was ruled by Poland as a vassal, but its leadership remained German and Germans remained the majority.
How would one say, “But that’s different!” in Russian?
Informative thread
Kinda interesting how the United Nations sanctions wholesale population shifts while generally treating sovereign borders as sacrosanct. I guess the egghead diplomats in NYC see no contradiction there.
Ever heard of who’s won WW2?
There, fixed it for you!
Regards,
Ever hear of the Baltics?
Putin can stop this insanity anytime he wants to. The rest of us will respond to his insanity.
We’re not supplying Ukraine. Not at all.
It’s just a special logistics operation.
I certainly hope it’s a Russian who kills Putin. That would be best for everyone.
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